"Government out!", "AKP out!" the mourners chanted as several senior ministers and members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) arrived for one of the funerals here.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and chief of general staff General Yasar Buyukanit also attended the ceremony at the packed yard of Ankara's largest mosque, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not present.

"Tayyip, send your sons to the army," the protestors chanted.

Government ministers were further embarrassed when the wife of the soldier being buried, a major, refused to shake hands with them, the NTV news channel reported.

The government has come under fire for failing to curb the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since the group, listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and much of the international community, significantly stepped up violence in the spring.

The army is pushing for a military incursion into neighbouring northern Iraq, where PKK rebels enjoys safe haven and, Turkish officials charge, obtain weapons and explosives for attacks on Turkish targets across the border.

Facing general elections on July 22, the government has so far resisted calls for a cross-border operation to pursue the PKK, which is strongly opposed by both Iraq and the United States.

"Down with the PKK," "The motherland cannot be divided," the mourners shouted as they brandished the red-and-white national flag.

There were similar scenes at the other two funerals -- in Istanbul and the western city of Manisa.

Thousands booed Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc, a senior AKP member, in Manisa, his home town, forcing him to quit a procession marching from the mosque to the cemetery under the protection of riot police, media reports said.

The three soldiers, among them a lieutenant colonel, were killed Saturday when PKK rebels set off a remote-control landmine in Sirnak province, on Turkey's southeastern border with Iraq.

Officials said Monday another soldier was killed in fighting with PKK rebels in the eastern province of Erzincan.

Violence in the southeast has claimed the lives of 54 members of the security forces and 74 PKK militants this year, according to army figures.

Seven civilians were killed in May when a suicide bomber, believed to be a Kurdish militant, blew himself up at a busy shopping centre in Ankara.

Erdogan on Tuesday was expected to hold a meeting with senior officials, including General Buyukanit and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, to review the security situation in the country, Anatolia news agency reported.

The PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.